Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Good old SLOG

A dear friend of mine helped me to get me a delightful mention in The Stranger's web blog, SLOG, under the Visual Arts section-Currently Hanging-posted by Jen Graves. This is a great thing! I'm very grateful for this. If you want to check it out (although, dear readers, I suspect you have already seen it if you are seeing this post) it's on www.thestranger.com. Find the SLOG, and the visual arts section, and scroll down past the picture of the naked pregnant punk-rock lady. Which has created a bit of an online stir according to Jen.

This happening just reminds me how happy I am to have a lot of wonderful supportive friends in this town (and around the world). Trying to make it as an artist is an exasperating process, one that leans heavily on networking and connections and constant promotion and to have such a wonderful group of people out there helping me along here and there when they can just tickles me pink. Thank you all so much, always! And I hope I can always return the favor, or at least buy y'all a beer.

Moving on...the Form/Space show is almost down, one more week to go. Next week I will be hanging and prepping for the bit Portrait Challenge show at Fat Tiger, and hang a few new works of my own as well. I'm moving out of my post-big-show letdown period and getting productive as well. I'm not sure why I just mentioned that. Maybe to remind myself to never slack off.

Any who, I did slack off a bit and now have a few reviews for you:

Grand Archives -The Grand Archives Mat Brooke and friends have released what may prove to be the best album of the year on Sub Pop. It's so pretty and polished and lovely. It's almost too pure. A bit CSNY, a bit Beach Boys, and of course a bit Carissa's Wierd. They only thing I'm not entirely sold on with this album is that some of the extra instrumentation, the horns, the steel guitar, seems a little superfluous. But maybe I just wanted to hear nothing but guitar and violin (as in I just want to hear new CarissasWierd) and likely it's simply a personal taste issue. Pretty damn great though! 4.5 MolosS, SeraCahoone, and Grand Archives at the Triple Door - I was quite ill when I saw this show, but I had a few whiskeys and sucked it up because how could I pass on this! Jen Ghetto, aka S, Sera, and Mat were all in Carissa's Wierd, so maybe, just maybe they might play some CW songs?? Well, they did play one, it was just Jenn and Matt playing, and it was worth the ticket price all on it's own. (Actually, S played a CW song right before Mat came on stage which was great too!) In fact, S was worth it all on it's own. I love Jenn's shy, lovely stage presence and simple, rough, precious songs. SeraCahoone was excellent as well...and by the time GA came onstage I was getting really tired...but they played through their entire album and were masterful. Great show! 4.5 MolosThe Fountain - On DVD. The last picture by Daren Aronofsky (Pi, Requim For a Dream). Came out in 2006 to a sea of baffled reviewers. This movie is far better than everyone said it was. It's essentially 3 stories in one, all related to each other and can be taken a few different ways. It's not a happy picture, being about life and the stuggle against death-Fountain of youth kind of stuff-hence the name. And I shall not try to explain the plot to you. But if you rent it don't try to super analyze it too much. Enjoy the lush imagery and really strong middle (chronologically within the plot) story. Hugh Jackman is surprisingly strong in this film. 3.5 MolosDays of Heaven - I rented this classic Terrence Malick feature as well. 1976 I think. A young Richard Gere. Great movie. Very very Malick in story and setting. Which means the characters all are dealing with heavy, harsh realities of life-struggling against man's own violent nature and doing so in a very wonderful environments full of beauty and promise even. Man vs Nature is not quite what Malick is about-it's more about Man fighting his own nature and the natural world is very much telling us things about the characters....any who, i'm getting off track. Gere is great, the film is lovely, painful, really painful, quirky, pretty and sensual. With a young and strong Sam Shepard too. Malick is a master. 4 Molos